Reddit 的前 EM 提到 Reddit 用的 Dark Pattern

Hacker News Daily 上看到「Reddit's disrespectful design」這個,在講 Reddit 用到的 dark pattern, 不過我覺得更棒的是在 Hacker News 上的討論:「Reddit’s disrespectful design (ognjen.io)」。

討論裡面出現了之前在 Reddit 裡面負責這塊的 EM (engineer manager),wting

I was the EM for Reddit's Growth team around this time. I am responsible for / contributed to a few features like the current signup flow, AMP pages, push notifications, email digests, app download interstitials, etc.

然後他提到他當初拒絕實做其中一些 dark pattern,然後在經過 [0] 的事情後,他決定換團隊:

There was a new product lead who joined with many good ideas, but some of them were dark patterns that I heavily protested. After a few months of this, it was obvious that I was going to be reigned in or let go[0]; I immediately transferred to a different org.

其中 [0] 的部份是,公司把他 reporting line 改成到 product lead XDDD

0: They changed it so I would report to the product lead, which is odd for an EM to report into a product chain and the only instance within the company ever.

另外他也講了一個事情,就是強姦使用者是有用的,而且超級有用:

Now let me explain the other side of the story. 4 years later, Reddit's DAU, MAU, and revenue have all grown at ridiculous rates[1]. Yes, power users complain—and still continue using the site—but the casual user does not. These dark patterns have been normalized on other websites.

These practices are done because it works.

1: Many friends are startup founders and I've been at a few startups myself—a byproduct of being in the Bay Area—and Reddit's growth numbers are impressive. As a former employee, I am quite happy about my equity growth.

這幾乎是共識了,dark pattern 看起來很邪惡沒錯,但他就是有用...